Archive for June 14, 2009

Well, it was an interesting way to start my week. I packed up the kids and sent them to camp only to find out camp starts today. I’ll never live that one down. I deserved all the grief they gave me.

The humidity was somewhat at bay, but the temperatures were high.

What's so amazing about this plant? The fact that it exist in Helen's Haven. Must have been under the bunny's radar

My friend Madonna Phillips invited me over to her garden for wine and to pass off a voodoo plant she no longer desired. Madonna and Greg’s garden was in the March 2009 edition of Better Homes and Gardens Path Finders. Notice the purple cone flower in the photo to the left? It looks tall, and it is. Now look at it with me in the photo. I’m 5 foot 10 inches.

Saturday, I took the kids to the Sunshine Lavender Farm‘s open house where we ate lavender ice cream, admired all the lavender, and best of all, hooked up with fellow garden blogger and friend

FFG and GWC

Flower Garden Girl. Anna has been blogging for about 4 years – nearly ancient in internet years, specifically blogging years. While I’m no newbie to blogging (18 months), I still bow to a member of the blogging community that paved the way in garden blogging popularity. Like Tina at In The Garden, whom I met and posted about last Sunday June 7th post; I felt I knew Anna. This is the power of the internet. A place to make the world one.

Anna and I have so many shared interest in addition to gardening, kids, family, Church. Her kids our grown; mine yet to fledge. She is passionate about everything she does and I like that in a person. Her enthusanthusiasm is infectious. It was a fun encounter and I always like my kids to meet my friends. It was also a good lesson in internet meeting. We hear too much of the bad. But there is also a lot of good.

FFG and I also tweet together- she being @FlowerGardenGal, and me, @GWConfidence. In fact, we found out each other was going to the open house through our tweets.

Anna, come visit me in my garden, Helen’s Haven. I promise I’ll not put you to work. We can sit on the back porch and watch the wildlife, sip some tea, and talk about life.

Even in the heat, I managed to enjoy my time working in the garden. Here’s some of the fun:

Thinned out some aggressive natives wildlife plants from the Mixed Border including bee balm and salvias.

Divided some daylilies.

Loaded up Cosmo, my trusty Ford 150 pickup truck, and hauled a load to the Raleigh yard waste center. While I was there, I picked up a load of composted leaf mulch. I knew I would be doing some planting this week and wanted to tidy the beds I was planning to disturb.

Visited the NC State Farmer’s Market in Raleigh. Made the rounds to some of my favorite growers including John and Diva at Archer Lodge Herb Farm, Oasis, and Weston Farms. Brought home with me a regular swamp sunflower and a new dwarf, bronze fennel for my hungry butterfly larvae, Sedum mediovarigeatum stone crop, Rudbecka hirta, fleabane ‘Profussion’, giant elephant ears. dwarf Ginko biloba ‘Green Pagoda’, weeping mimosa, lily of the valley, and some other things including the first peaches of the year – yummmm.

Applied mulch to tidy up the beds disturbed from planting.

Started a twibe on tweeter for garden writers coming to Raleigh for the Garden Writers Association meeting in September #gwa.

I’ll post about Sunshine Lavender Farm another day. My blogging friend posted our visit today on her blog Flower Garden Girl. Her recount of our conversation was very funny, no doubt, even funnier than the actual story. She can spin a tale; she has a knack for that!

I’m very familiar with the term, “Country come to town.” In fact, I embodied that expression on a recent trip to NYC. I believe there is a term for a city slicker going to the country. Not sure, though, of the term for a suburbanite like me going to the country, but I sure acted goofy to the people driving behind me.

I couldn’t help but gawk at all the scenery on the stretch of road between Sunshine Lavender Farm and I85. I kept pulling over, or slowing down to let others pass me so I wouldn’t miss a thing. At one point, I pulled over and this young, cute cowboy (in a truck and cowboy hat) stopped to see if I was broke down and needed help. When I told him I was only taking photos, he just tipped his hat and moseyed on.